February 7th 2015: Ice Climbing and Ice Castles

My friend and I set out early this morning to get to the Northeast Mountaineering Bunkhouse in Bartlett NH, where we were to set out for an ice climbing expedition.

I have since realized that I have been here before in the past to do waterfall rappelling. We had to rent mountaineering boots, crampons, gaiters, harnesses and helmets, and spent some time fitting them.

When we were all equipped, we went on a drive to the Crawford Notch State Park in Hart's Location NH, going to the railroad track on Arethusa Falls Road, hiking northward on it,

where the views of the surrounding mountains from the bridge were amazing.

The ice covered cliffsides were beautiful as well.

After crossing the bridge, we put on our crampons,

and hiked up the steep hillside in the Frankenstein Cliffs area

to get to our climbing area for the day.

Our guides set up the ropes,

showed us how to belay,

as well as the techniques required to use our ice axes

and our crampons to climb the ice.

Then, it was time for us to climb.

I have to say that everyone else other than my friend and I, who were pretty unfit, got pretty good at ice climbing in the end, climbing to the top several times.

I got some pictures of me climbing, fortunately.

I have to say, it took some effort to get the axes stuck in the snow to use it suitably for support, as it was to kick holes in the ice with the crampons to stand on them. My toes became painful eventually with all the kicking, and decided not to aggravate them again after a while of climbing.

When everyone was finally done, my friend and I managed to slide quickly down the hill, then made our way back to the car and back to the bunkhouse to return our stuff.

After a tiring ice climbing experience, we headed all the way to Lincoln NH to check out the Ice Castles.

I have to say, I wasn't really impressed with the manmade ice formations, although it was cool to see the many ice spikes hanging over our heads, and the lights shining out from within the ice. It is a pretty unique experience though. Pictures I took here follow.

Done with the cold, we left for Massachusetts in light of the pending snow storm.With not much snow falling by the time we got back to Malden, we decided to get dinner at Oppas' Kitchen and Bar, a new Korean restaurant in town. The decor here was little on the simple side, but there were a lot of interesting stuff on the menu. We initially decided to get stews, with me getting the Gopchang Jigae (Beef Intestines and beef tripes with tofu, enoki mushrooms and vegetables in spicy stew),

and my friend getting the Kimchi Jigae (Homemade kimchi, sliced pork, sweet rice cakes, tofu, enoki mushrooms in spicy stew).

Although the 2 stews looked the same, they could not have tasted more different. Mine was strongly beef flavored and spicy with peppers in it, while my friend's was less spicy and pretty sour, going well with the rice.

I wasn't feeling satisfied after my meal though, so I decided to get the Japanese Chashu Ramen (Japanese style tender slices of marinated char siu (pork belly) on Japanese Yellow ramen noodles with kamaboka (steamed fish cake, corn, enoki mushrooms, bean sprouts and scallions in tasty tonkatsu pork broth).

I have to say the soup was absolutely delicious.

Overall, a recommend, being the only Korean restaurant in town, although I do have one complaint. The ingredients stated in the menu for the dishes were not necessarily what we got. For example, my stew had rice cakes, while my friend's did not, and mine did not have tofu. The ramen had eggs, but no corn or fish cakes.

A great end to a fun but tiring day in the ice. Thankfully I got home before the worst of the ice came.